Speed Tweaks/Tips

[Mr_Reed]

Looking for safe official tips and tweaks to adjust the performance of LM xfce Serena on my laptop. I have visited this google sites website.
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... -mint-xfce

I'm a little hesitant to change things like the swappiness. Don't even know if it would help. My computer has 3GB of ram installed, but I don't think the entire 3GB is usable due to the onboard video. I know my computer is not going to be a big powerful work station, but I'm just trying to get the most out of it. Maybe you know of some tips or tweaks that helped you.

[jimallyn]

The author of the Easy Linux Tips website is Pjotr, a well respected member of the forums. I would consider anything you find there to be safe, and almost certainly effective. I have used instructions from there many times. As far as changing the swappiness, I usually do that. On computers with not so much RAM, it is effective, but with 12 gigs of RAM on the computer I am currently using, I didn't really see any difference.

As far as the rest of the problems you mentioned, it's probably best to start a new thread in the appropriate forums section for each one. When you list multiple problems, answers will probably come in for all of them, and it winds up being a jumbled mess, especially if one of more of the problems take multiple rounds of question and answer to solve.

[Cosmo.]

Changing swappiness will by design not have an effect, until the physical RAM is not used by the system and programs for about 80 % or more.

Open the system monitor and see, if swap gets used at all. If not, changing swappiness will have no effect. The simply logic behind it: If swap does not get used, changing the policy for its use cannot reduce its usage quite obviously. Less than zero does (in this case) not exist.

[Hoser Rob]

From that list of issues it doesn't sound like those type of speed tweaks would help ... you seem to have some basic config issues. "Speed tweaks" won't fix those.

It's hard to say what they might be without some useful system info though, Copy/paste this in to the terminal and copy/paste the text output here:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

[deleted]

An SSD would be most useful, tho you have to by one if you don't have one.
I put one in a Netbook with a 64 bit 1.1 ghz Celeron chip and 2 gb of ram (hardly a speed demon), but it runs KDE Mint just fine.
-Hinto

[Mr_Reed]

An SSD would be most useful, tho you have to by one if you don't have one.
-Hinto

I don't have any SSD. I'm just trying to use my existing hardware unless it would fail, then I might go for a SSD. My hard drives are in good shape.

[DAMIEN1307]

hi mr reed...pjotr's easylinux site is exactly where i wanted to start you out with but with doing certain other slim down measures on xfce first such as removing mono and orca first...disabling indexing and hibernation modes and removing rarely used if ever used fonts etc in order to pare down xfce to an even slimmer edition than what it already is out of the box...also making sure you have a better browser like slimjet with startpage search engine in that browser which is much faster with all my computers than firefox and the list goes on but i do these tweaks etc in a logical systematic order so as not to wreak havoc on any systems i work on and tailor made for the specific computer i work on...in other words one size does NOT fit all...some of the tweaks mentioned that i used on my eee pc with atom processor test computer such as zram i used because of having only 1 gig of ram and it worked well for me but i wouldn't use that on yours because you have 3 gigs of ram making that tweak useless on your system...these terminal command lines are what i use for the purpose of removing or disabling things that can help with performance issues to start with...i recommend doing only one at a time, reboot then do the next and so forth...will talk to you next when and if you personally choose for yourself to perform these tasks...DAMIEN

Mono/Orca Removal
sudo apt-get remove mono-runtime-common gnome-orca virtualbox-guest*

Disable Hibernation
sudo mv -v /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/com.ubuntu.enable-hibernate.pkla /

Disable Indexing
sudo apt-get purge apt-xapian-index

Remove Rarely Used Fonts
sudo apt-get -y --purge autoremove fonts-beng fonts-beng-extra fonts-deva fonts-droid fonts-gubbi fonts-gujr fonts-gujr-extra fonts-guru fonts-guru-extra fonts-kacst fonts-kacst-one fonts-kalapi fonts-khmeros-core fonts-knda fonts-lao fonts-lklug-sinhala fonts-lohit-beng-assamese fonts-lohit-beng-bengali fonts-lohit-deva fonts-lohit-gujr fonts-lohit-guru fonts-lohit-knda fonts-lohit-mlym fonts-lohit-orya fonts-lohit-taml fonts-lohit-taml-classical fonts-lohit-telu fonts-nakula fonts-nanum fonts-navilu fonts-noto-unhinted fonts-orya-extra fonts-pagul fonts-sahadeva fonts-samyak-deva fonts-samyak-gujr fonts-samyak-mlym fonts-samyak-taml fonts-sarai fonts-smc fonts-sil-abyssinica fonts-sil-padauk fonts-takao-pgothic fonts-taml fonts-telu fonts-telu-extra fonts-thai-tlwg fonts-tibetan-machine fonts-tlwg-garuda fonts-tlwg-garuda-ttf fonts-tlwg-kinnari fonts-tlwg-kinnari-ttf fonts-tlwg-laksaman fonts-tlwg-laksaman-ttf fonts-tlwg-loma fonts-tlwg-loma-ttf fonts-tlwg-mono fonts-tlwg-mono-ttf fonts-tlwg-norasi fonts-tlwg-norasi-ttf fonts-tlwg-purisa fonts-tlwg-purisa-ttf fonts-tlwg-sawasdee fonts-tlwg-sawasdee-ttf fonts-tlwg-typewriter fonts-tlwg-typewriter-ttf fonts-tlwg-typist fonts-tlwg-typist-ttf fonts-tlwg-typo fonts-tlwg-typo-ttf fonts-tlwg-umpush fonts-tlwg-umpush-ttf fonts-tlwg-waree fonts-tlwg-waree-ttf fonts-wqy-microhei fonts-wqy-zenhei ttf-indic-fonts-core ttf-punjabi-fonts ttf-wqy-microhei

[deleted]

An SSD would be most useful, tho you have to by one if you don't have one.
-Hinto

I don't have any SSD. I'm just trying to use my existing hardware unless it would fail, then I might go for a SSD. My hard drives are in good shape.

No worries.. but they are pretty cheap right now.

[Mr_Reed]

hi mr reed...pjotr's easylinux site is exactly where i wanted to start you out with but with doing certain other slim down measures on xfce first such as removing mono and orca first...disabling indexing and hibernation modes and removing rarely used if ever used fonts etc in order to pare down xfce to an even slimmer edition than what it already is out of the box...also making sure you have a better browser like slimjet with startpage search engine in that browser which is much faster with all my computers than firefox and the list goes on but i do these tweaks etc in a logical systematic order so as not to wreak havoc on any systems i work on and tailor made for the specific computer i work on...in other words one size does NOT fit all...some of the tweaks mentioned that i used on my eee pc with atom processor test computer such as zram i used because of having only 1 gig of ram and it worked well for me but i wouldn't use that on yours because you have 3 gigs of ram making that tweak useless on your system...these terminal command lines are what i use for the purpose of removing or disabling things that can help with performance issues to start with...i recommend doing only one at a time, reboot then do the next and so forth...will talk to you next when and if you personally choose for yourself to perform these tasks...DAMIEN

Hi Damien:
How would uninstalling applications, and disabling hibernation improve speed or give a boost?

Not familiar with slimjet browser, I'll have to check it out.

[DAMIEN1307]

hi mr reed...well first off anything not necessary to the real running of the actual system can only sap resources...the less there is to deal with the better for the system...hibernate in linux mint by the way is a known glitch for some laptop computers actually causing it to go into a coma when activated...i would therefore suggest that my idea of trying to streamline this for you so you can be up and running quicker than i did will probably not work for you at this time...since all the removals, tweaks etc im suggesting have the majority of them come from the easy linux articles written by pjotr,...my next step after the first ones were accomplished was to guide you into turning off all the "eye candy" , window tiling, screen saver, disable unessential startups etc....so you can probably appreciate that i was going to try to save you the time and mistakes that i made along the way in order to save you some of the errors i committed during my learning experience which of course caused me to re-install and start from scratch...therefore i now recommend that you read the entire easy linux mint for xfce columns written by pjotr first, follow the links to the next and then the next etc...depending how much free time you may have available to you in a given day i figure by the time you will have all this under your belt will be approx 3 months or so, more or less, to acquire the knowledge, digest it, then apply it all in a logical step by step fashion not tweaking things until the peripherals are out of the way first...i was just trying to save you much time...it isnt just all about speeding things up and giving it a boost...its making sure that everything will work in harmony with everything else to avoid glitches etc....when all is in harmony together than the speed and boost will follow as it has with my own systems as well as 44 others i have converted over from windows systems with no glitches thus far...since im retired with nothing but time it took me much less time to accomplish these things...plus being a speed reader helps lol...enjoy your learning experience...DAMIEN

[Mr_Reed]

I was apparently somewhat a step ahead in reading the articles on the website. I was just hesitant to DO it ALL. I was afraid I might break something, because I had the idea that LM was supposed to be good right out of the box so to speak. So I naturally questioned all these tweaks, and if it would remove something I would need.

Regarding the swappiness adjustment. Should I do that considering that I have 3GB of installed memory? Of course like I said before, the computer doesn't get all 3GB simply because some is allotted to the Radeon onboard video.

[DAMIEN1307]

hi mr reed...i was hoping that you would understand what i wrote...you really need to see the wisdom of doing these things in a SPECIFIC ORDER which i learned from trial and error with error being a key word...if you really insist on PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE first then you will find that when you try to apply the swappiness first and then go to RECHECK IT to see if it actually took effect, you will probably find it didnt work at all and the setting will still show 60...P.S. there is an easier way to configure swap file system so that is adaptive in real time for its real needs not a static size but your not letting me lead you to this path...so anyways go ahead and try the swappiness proccedure as you seem to know better than I what should be done first...you wont cause any problem with the computer by trying it but see if it does or does not work by following those instructions without proceeding in the MEASURED,FIRST THINGS FIRST PROCEDURE that ive been trying to convince you to understand needs to be done FIRST...keep in mind im not exactly an amatuer at this...i also build my own computers as well and actually know how to write programs...to give you an idea...this system im typing to you from is one i built...16 gigs of ram...quad core 3.6 ghz processor...1 terabyte hdd...600 what power supply...with a cooler master tower with four fans with manual and automatic external control systems installed...operating system is a full blown linux mint cinnamon 18.1 serena edition...also all documents,pictures, videos, music, files etc all installed on usb flash drives...backups on additional usb flash drives and an external hard drive...this results in main computer system using only a total of 5.6 gigs of the hard drive everything works in the literal blink of an eye...yes it is overkill but the computer geeks at white sands missile test site and holloman afb all agree it is better than what they shoot missiles with...they tested it after i built it...and the military certified it for secure use for relatives here in alamogordo nm to be able to contact their military family members in the hotspots of the world right now...sorry to be abrupt but i am not well known for patience in trying to help people that need it and constantly question why things are done in certain ways first when it could literally take years to explain all the nuances of the way things work and why things need to be done in a specific order...when you change a tire, you do not just yank off the wheel and then loosen the lug nuts...you loosen the lug nuts first so you can easily remove the wheel...im not young any longer and literally do not have the time to fully explain every detail in order to get things done in a timely,efficient fashion...DAMIEN

[Mr_Reed]

I've applied many in fact almost all the tips from the website. However I came to the article on "cleaning" LM and I'm a little confused about deleting old kernels. Not sure what to delete and what to keep.

[DAMIEN1307]

hi mr reed...i always keep the latest 2 kernels in the 4.4 series kernels...the active one is the latest and the installed one is the one just before that...I remove all the rest...that way i always have just the latest ones to revert to in case a kernel update borks out on me...DAMIEN

[Mr_Reed]

So is it safe to say the lower numbered kernels below what is installed can be deleted? Is it a process where they have to be removed one by one?

Any chance for a screen shot demo?

[Mr_Reed]

I ended up going back and downloading the 64bit xfce edition of LM. Since my hardware is 64bit capable, I thought it was time to move to 64bit. I'm glad that I did. I have noticed a slight boost from the 32bit to 64 bit. Thanks again for the tips.

[crazyeyes25]

from that list of issues it doesn't sound like those type of speed tweaks would help

[austin.texas]

So is it safe to say the lower numbered kernels below what is installed can be deleted? Is it a process where they have to be removed one by one?

Any chance for a screen shot demo?

You only need to keep the kernel you are using, and one other that you know works - to fall back on (just in case...)
Remove old kernels with the Update Manager > View Menu > Linux Kernels

[Citizen229]

viewtopic.php?f=60&t=233694

I dont have kids, so the login screen a boot gets checked off on install. The login screen after boot is one resource hogging pig. Removing it at install was the best way to do so back in 17.3 when I last used it. Trying to remove it later never seemed to work correctly. Dont forget to hit the bios and turn off "Speed boot"(forget the real name but its something like that). Its a bios feature that works for windows, and slows down linux.

[Mr_Reed]

Hi everybody. I've been successfully using my LM 64bit installation for quite some time now. Yay me! Very happy with it. I noticed in what I think are the startup programs, there are things mentioned in there that include names such as nvidia. I'm not looking at it right now in front of me, so I can't give the exact name, but I wondered if this can be removed or disabled. Do you guys know the nvidia entry that I'm talking about?

My point is, my computer does not contain Nvidia hardware whatsoever, so I don't understand why it is needed.